Sonic X-Treme Pin – A Historical Oddity

Above is a little pin with a whole lot of history. This pin was a promo for Sonic X-Treme, a 3D Sonic game perhaps most famous for never being released.

In 1995, Sega expressed the fact that their flagship 32-bit console, the Sega Saturn, lacked any representation from Sonic the Hedgehog, the company's mascot. The Sega Technical Institute, an American division of Sega which had previously helped in the production of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and 3 on the Genesis, had been toying with the premise of a 3D Sonic game ever since the release of the 32X - thus, Sega put them in charge of developing a true 3D Sonic game for the Saturn.

The game's development was troubled, to say the least - several different engines (including the engine of the in-development Nights Into Dreams) were used for the project, but a looming deadline of Holiday 1996 and a generally unfocused development cycle ever so common with early 3D efforts slowed the game's progress to a crawl. The firing of key employees late in the development cycle was the final nail in the coffin for the project, which was cancelled. An upgraded port of Sonic 3D Blast served as the Saturn's mainline Sonic title instead.

The above pin goes to show that the game was so close to completion that merchandise had already been created for it - a rare case for any cancelled game. Beta gameplay videos can be found across the internet.

4 Responses to “Sonic X-Treme Pin – A Historical Oddity”

After all the info out there on the net that shows just how much a mess the whole Sonic Xtreme project and its numerous forms were, I don’t think you can say that that pin existing was any indication of the game being near completion.

Speaking of Xtreme I remember long after it was cancelled I still saw ice cream trucks every so often going by with Sonic Xtreme bars =p Maybe even today I think..

So I finally broke down and purchased something that I discovered thru this website. The PlayStation 2 banner is now mine. I was worried for awhile because the Buy it now was for $90 bucks and you could of bid on it for $60. I almost just bought it to avoid a bidding battle but thankfully i was the only one to bid. The 18 dollars S&H scared me away from doing the buy it now option.

I kinda collect everything. I only have about 200 PS2 games and my main focus at the moment is actually completing my N64 collection with boxes and manuals. I use to work at a Gamestop however and I ended up getting to keep the PlayStation 2 kiosk we had at the store and I think the banner complements that kiosk really well. One day I might go for a complete PS2 collection but that is a ruff system to collect for with over 2500 titles. My collection currently is about 2100 games total between all systems so to go for a complete PS2 collection right now might not be feasable lol.